#AIHce Social Media Meetup

Hilton Portland

Bistro 921 Hotel Bar Hilton Portland

The 2nd* annual #AIHce social media meetup took place on Sunday May 15, 2011 at the Hilton Portland & Exec Towers at the Bistro 921 Bar at 4:30pm. 

Once the confusion of "which" Hilton is it in?-this one or the one across the street? folks started to arrive at Bistro 921.  

It is always awkward at first approaching strangers at the bar asking if they are here for the social media meetup-I must remember to bring a sign with the Linked-In, Facebook and Twitter logos to future events to ease that nervousness-of course once Tony Uliano turned around I recognized his face from the AIHA Linked-In group and said "Tony how are you? It's me, Jennifer". Turns out Matt who was grading papers at the bar was also there for the meetup and my husband Jimmy and I welcomed them to join us at the tables in front of the tv.  

Back row L to R Tony, Jack, Jennifer, Ben, Don, Front row L to R Matt, Jimmy

The business card exchange began described by Don Weeks as "old school-did we know that people use USB devices to exchange contact information?" I couldn't believe it: the excitement overtook me as I pulled my keys out of my purse with my beloved IChromatography Scientist poken attached and demonstrated how a poken works, promising to forward the video Ken Grant of Analtech made about it (click here for Poken at Pittcon video)  and admitting that pokens are only fun when everyone has one-I promised Don a poken-I keep an extra for this exact opportunity-another social media enthusiast-I'll be mailing off his "tiger poken" today; turns out that Don is not only active on Linked-In but has been participating using the show hashtag on Twitter: #aihce.  Jack arrived and Don introduced us as his Linked-In friends. We had a social media discussion about Linked-In (most everyone uses it for business), Twitter (only myself and Don use it) and Facebook people in this Linked-In group use it more for personal relationships although they participate in the AIHA group on Facebook. 

We discussed how we all feel like we "know" each other through our interactions via the AIHA social media vehicles (Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter)  and how neat it was to get together and "meet face to face".


I had to leave at 5:30pm to get ready for my next event downstairs in Galleria North. My husband, Jimmy stayed behind and hung out with his new Linked-In friends, although he is my spouse and worthy of the purple spouse badge ribbon, he does work in the construction industry and is involved in green building and solar powered HVAC systems so he was able to find common ground amongst these industrial hygienists. We had another spouse join the group and a few others. So our social media meetup tally went up from 7 to 11. 

Looking forward to staying in contact with our new #AIHce friends whom we know a little better now and looking forward to meeting up in Indianapolis in 2012! If you are in Portland, stop by and see @pidguy at our booth #718.

*The first #aihce social media meetup was toted as a tweetup and took place at AIHCE 2010 in Denver. Click here for details.